This comes back to issues I’ve blogged about before, concerning professionalism and why editing matters (e.g. here). A short round-up of Top 5 Spa Hotels in Thailand (or whatever) for a website arguably doesn’t need an editor, but a long-form feature piece in prose certainly does. Lack of editing, I’d suggest, leads to the “wordy, adjective-laden travel articles” you talk about!

I’d say write for the market, sure – but also push the envelope a little. Otherwise we’re all condemned to go round and round the same, formulaic circuit…

I cringed a little when I left that comment wondering how people would react. It’s been an interesting discussion. However, I think you may have slightly misunderstood what I was saying.

I believe you should write for people…always. Optimize what you write, but never just write for search engines.

There’s definitely still a place for traditional travel writing, but if you are going to use a particular medium, it’s important to understand that medium and the mindset of the people who use it. When people are on the web, their attention span is different than when they are reading a novel. If you want to capture those people, and keep them interested, you need to write for them. The writing is not about you. It is about the audience.

If you can write stories that are compelling enough, people will read them, google will like them, and everyone wins. I certainly don’t think travel writing needs to read like a brochure, but frankly, some of the wordy, adjective laden travel articles I’ve read seem to be more about the author than the reader.

Interesting discussion certainly, and it will continue as things shake out. It is my hope that there is room for all kinds of writing, and that it finds its “right people”.

Thanks for linking to my blog. I appreciate it:)

The problem comes in your last para. You may well be hopeful that long-form writing will thrive – but who is going to publish it, in order for it then to be picked up and shared? If old media won’t, and new media follow Debbie’s line from my original post, the only outlets left will be books and perhaps Jeremy’s handful of expensive subscription mags.

Or will every travel writer – as well as blogging, tweeting and sharing – have to set up their own monetized outlet for publishing their long-form articles, in the hope of picking up recommendations? Life may turn out to be too short for all this…

And the crucial element lacking – as we’ve discussed before – is professional editing. To be good, writers need editors. Where will they come from?

My inkling – and it is only an inkling – is that both journalism-style and writing-style content will flourish on the internet. We should always remember that the web is only in its infancy (or at best, adolescence). Who knows what it will be like when it matures.

Jeremy Head also pointed me to another post – http://bit.ly/cMfzQT – which gave me great hope. To summarise, recommendation is becoming an increasingly popular way to find things on the web. I think – and certainly hope – that it will only become more. Discovery by recommendation is far more suited to the writing-style pieces that I enjoy reading and creating.

Let me give an example from two of my own pieces (and sites).

This piece on how to get to Australia using budget airlines – http://www.australiaflightbargains.com/australia-cheap-flights-guide/can-i-fly-to-australia-using-low-cost-airlines – is classic web fodder. It’s useful, reasonably SEO friendly, and it gets a steady trickle of people coming in via search. It’s not very exciting or inspiring, though, so few people are going to link to it or Tweet it.

Then take this piece on doing the Bush Mail Run in the Australian Outback – http://www.grumpytraveller.com/articles/bush-mail-run-from-the-australian-outback-town-of-broken-hill-nsw
It’s a traditional, positively SEO-antagonistic, long piece of travel writing. It’s one that I’m proud to put my name to. And guess what? It gets as much traffic as the drab Aussie flights piece – if not more. And that traffic has come almost entirely from recommendations (including one by National Geographic), retweets, stumbles etc.

I’m not quite sure how good travel writing will be monetised – I’d guess a combination of subscription, micro-payments and advertising. But I’m fairly hopeful that we’re about to enter an era where it can thrive on the basis of others seeing it, liking it and wanting to share it.

Jeremy – you’re right, but as you say tech designers are developing devices to enable long reading. It’s already easy and comfortable to read prose on an iPhone (can vouch for that first-hand), and the iPad will take that further.

And why are people designing such devices? Because long reading matters! We just happen to be stuck in the gappy couple of decades between the comfort of reading newsprint and the comfort of reading iPad (and its successors). What’s important is that we don’t lose perspective and start thinking the future of travel writing lies in what is being produced now. It doesn’t.